Not Orange - Mystery Monday Link-up #4

Check out the posts for people who are doing the Good Fortune Mystery Quilt this week over at this link!

I was hoping that there would be strings this mystery, and was very glad to have an excuse to dig into my overflowing bin. I was a little distracted over the weekend with some Christmas projects that I just finished up today. I also had to finish up clue 3, which I chose to do in yellows. So clue 1-3 are all in the overflowing basket, red, green, and yellow, while I just have a small number of the needed string blocks for 4 in blue, which I am using instead of orange. I am not quite sure yet if I want to go to a more medium blue, or if I want to get a wide range in.

Some of the "outlier" blues from my bin are quite a bit lighter than the average. I'm not sure if I want that much variegation. I have become convinced that I need to cull my string bins: I have one of those 3-drawer plastic storage things, one bin for warm colors, one for cool colors, and one for neutrals in light and dark. But after a couple of years of playing with the fabric, a lot of it is not that exciting to me anymore, and many pieces are too small to do much with. I will probably either cut some of my fat quarters or pull some strips from my 1 1/2 and 2" boxes. It's highly improvisational, and I like how this process is a different one from all the other clues.

 I've been making some extra units in different colorways all along, but I'm more and more convinced I want to stick with my plan (red stays red, green instead of blue, yellow instead of green, blue instead of orange). These above are some of my extra units.

These orange string blocks are pretty, and I do love orange a lot. I just have used orange a fair amount over the last several years, and my stash is pretty depleted. There was On Ringo Lake last year, my Rainbow String Star top, and Celtic Solstice in 2013, which has been on the quilting frame for many months now so I see it all the time... plus my Frugal Patch color study quilt in progress has a lot of orange in it. I have knitted two Rhinebeck sweaters from hand-dyed, hand-spun orange yarn and I wear mine a lot. I still do love orange. Just not for this quilt.

Looking at my blue string blocks, I'm thinking I do want to go a little lighter, a more medium "China" blue, and less of the navy. Which means I will have to move away from the string bins a bit and into my regular stash. I may use this as an excuse to purge my string bins of any fabrics I don't love anymore or that is too small to make me want to use it.